whats your opinion of this video?

[wincest]

Coal Country Voter Explains Election

[blm]

1. You should offer your opinion first.

It's the appropriate thing to do on a discussion forum.

[wincest]

18. my apoligies

i should have given my opinion. i share the same opinion as Cenk.

[JoeOtterbein]

2. Troll Bait

J

[wincest]

19. im curious

why do you believe this to be troll bait?

[elleng]

3. 100%

[jalan48]

4. Good video-we have more in common than we think.

[lambchopp59]

5. Some of it was attempting to decipher Joe Goombah's take on "green energy"

Seemed he mentioned this in passing, unsure where he stood on this.
Holy moly how to break down into simple enough terms to the "Great grampuh, grampuh, muh daddy did this" sort that economies must adapt to circumstances and diversification is key to staying competent for the future.
Certainly education is magnanimously lacking here. Young buck seeks "change", certainly if he voted for Republicans, change means reversal, throwing the low income sort out of work and restricting access to safety net once that happens to boot.
Democrats do need to utilize history lessons. Even recent charts of the last two republican reigns of terror resulted in tremendous unemployment. Democrats must invest in counter-media to pound this lesson into thick skulls only willing to consume the easy to digest meat-and-potatoes simplifications of complex issues the sly FOX is adept at confabulating. There is their weakness a counter media can exploit!
The Daily Show has done it for years. But a serious format to attract the younger Joe Goombah set such as this is sadly lacking.

[truebluegreen]

15. Ugh.

Joe Goombah ain't the one who needs an eddication here.

Btw, wth does "magnanimously lacking" mean?

[lambchopp59]

17. Perhaps "lacking in magnanimity" would have been clearer.

I was attempting a lightly humorous contradiction in terms.
I agree, Joe is probably one of the more enlightened of the ilk.
And I probably should have qualified this better from my personal point of view:
I was partially raised in a mining town where admiration for stupidity was common, and vehement hatred towards "book larnin" and "bookworms" such as I was overwhelming.
The entire community would stone me in the town square to this day for being a liberal faggot.
I ran away from home at 16 to spare my life.
And I have zero respect for that radical conservatism.

[brush]

6. The guy is a critical thinker, makes a lot of sense. At the end he's proposing a union.

Good for workers but what happened to the unions? Did the miners never organize before, or did they vote union organization down before?

At lease they're starting realize collective bargaining is their only hope.

It's a little late now though after voting for trump and the repugs. Collective bargain/unions will be on the chopping block now that the repugs control everything.

[elleng]

7. Here's the story of mine workers union:

'The UMW was founded in Columbus, Ohio, on January 22, 1890, by the merger of two earlier groups, the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National Progressive Miners Union. It was modeled after the American Federation of Labor (AFL).The Union's emergence in the 1890s was the culmination of decades of effort to organize mine workers and people in adjacent occupations into a single, effective negotiating unit. At the time coal was one of the most in-demand natural resources, used to heat homes and to power machines in industries. The coal mines were a competitive and dangerous place to work. And with decreasing amounts of pay occurring on a regular basis,[2] miners sought a group to stand up for their rights.'>>>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Mine_Workers

[markpkessinger]

20. He's a critical thinker . . . up to a point

Last edited Mon Jan 9, 2017, 03:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Having grown up in the rural rustbelt of Pennsylvania, and having seen the way the exodus of manufacturing jobs -- first to the South, then south of the border -- has sucked the life out of so many small towns like the one I grew up in, I am very sympathetic to the concerns of voters in those areas, and I agree that Democrats have done a horrible job of trying to address those concerns (even though they've certainly done, or tried to do, a hell of a lot more than Republicans).

But when it comes to the coal industry, I gotta say, that's another kettle of fish entirely. Coal is a dying industry. And it is an industry that needs to die. I get that there is a culture -- a way of life -- connected to coal mining, and that people want to hold on to that which they have known. But the world has figured out it must move away from coal. As a fuel source, not only does it release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, there is the problem of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, mercury and particulate matter emissions. But its problems begin long before it is burned as fuel. If coal is extracted using deep mining, it is often dangerous to the lives of miners, and is almost invariably ruinous to their health. If it is surface mined (i.e., strip-mined or extracted by mountain top removal), the environmental damage, particularly from the acid runoff and leeching of heavy metals from mines that are no longer in use, is devastating and long term.

So, we come to the guy in the video. On the one hand, he's saying that 80% of folks like him are not climate change denialists or anti-environmentalism. And on the other, he's saying that they just want to hold on to their coal mining jobs, and out of desperation will vote for any asshole who says he's going to bring their jobs back. Trump promised to bring those jobs back, but it isn't a promise Trump can keep. This guy even admits that many of them know Trump probably doesn't mean it. So what is it they are looking for, exactly? Seems to me they are looking for someone who will simply tell them something they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear -- which is that they are either going to have to find new industries in which to find employment, or remain stuck exactly where they are, with no prospects on the horizon. So, sure, Democrats could lie to them, and allow them to hold on to false hope for just a little while longer. But isn't being lied to also one of their central complaints? I mean, they really can't have it both ways.

The guy in the video seems to understand that jobs in the coal industry are being killed by a combination of automation and the availability of abundant and cheap natural gas. I'm no fan of fracking, either, but at least it can be said that natural gas burns much cleaner than coal, even if it, too, has environmental problems related to its extraction. So how does he not get that there is nothing any president or political party can really do to stem the tide of automation. And how does he not get that you can't force a market for a product for which there are other, cheaper alternatives that are less environmentally damaging besides.

We can talk about how to help these folks train for different jobs. We can talk about the kind of support that they should be given as they make that transition (and that support may be substantial and of significant duration). We could talk about an FDR-style jobs program, putting these folks to work on much-needed infrastructure projects. But they don't want to hear any of this -- they just want someone to tell them (even if it is an outright lie) that their former way of life will return. If that's what they want/need from the Democratic Party, then I simply don't see that we have much to offer them, short of fabricating our own Trump-style lies. And is that really what they want?

[brush]

21. Thanks, good in-depth analysis. Clinton refused to lie to them. She promised training...

Last edited Mon Jan 9, 2017, 03:06 AM - Edit history (2)

in other fields but as you said, they didn't want to hear it.

[think]

8. Welcome to DU. TY for posting.

[rusty quoin]

9. This guy makes total sense.

I lived in the Ohio Valley in the nineties, and attended a junior college with the coal miners.

They were retraining for a different reason than me. I hated my job, so I had a choice. I moved from there, but I will always remember how great these guys were. I looked forward to being in class with them. This video makes me feel good, because he reminds me what they are like.

BTW, the Ohio Valley was hit with a bad economy a long time ago. I guess it started in the 70s.

[Trust Buster]

10. My opinion of this video is that it just furthers the denial we see in America today.

This guy might as well have been the guy in the nascent stages of this country's Industrial Age hoping that the effects of the Industrial Age would be reversed. The globalization era stands no better chance of being reversed than Industrial Age stood. Big Coal IS NOT coming back. Technology has leveled the playing field worldwide like never before in human history. This will be a permanent and irreversible change. The man in the video lacks the skills that today's employers value. He also lacks the skills necessary to be an entrepreneur. And, there is no government action that will change this guy's reality. Globalization deniers are no better than climate change deniers IMO. Let the attacks begin.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. Do you feel the same way about urban African Americans...

who are struggling economically?

They don't have the skills that today's employers value? Is that your answer?

[Trust Buster]

12. Shame on you for trying to make this a racial issue and trying to put words into my mouth.

Technology has enabled globalization to rise. That will not be reversed. We must now compete with talent from around the globe. A higher skill level will be necessary to create value that is most in demand. And, that applies to all regardless of one's skin color. Nice try.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

13. I asked a question and you answered it.

"that applies to all regardless of one's skin color."

Thanks.

[Willie Pep]

14. Good video.

We should listen to more people like the man in the video. We need to make a greater effort to listen to what ordinary Americans have to say on economics especially.

[blueseas]

16. He speaks for a segment of the population

Let's see others from other walks of life. I suspect those who are worried about work/ jobs may say the same.